Fed Chairman Jerome Powell already announced a rate hike in March, the first time since at least 1994 that the central bank has started a rate hike cycle within a month of a massive stock market sell-off. Investors were concerned about the outlook for the global economy and the Fed's accelerated monetary tightening.
The three major U.S. stock indexes suffered heavy losses across the board. As of Wednesday's close, the NASDAQ had hit a new low for the year, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.38% to 33,240.18 points. The Nasdaq Composite fell 3.95 percent to 12,490.74. The U.S. Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 2.81% to 4,175.20 points. The NASDAQ, which is dominated by technology stocks, fell by nearly 4%, and star technologies such as Microsoft, Netflix, Meta, and Google were also “sold”. On Tuesday, after Twitter accepted Musk's acquisition agreement, Tesla's stock price plummeted more than 12%, wiping more than $100 billion in market value. As of the close of the day, Twitter's stock price also fell more than 3%.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its forecast for economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region this year. According to the latest forecast released by the agency, GDP in the Asia-Pacific region will grow by 4.9% in 2022, which is 0.5 percentage points lower than the growth forecast in January and lower than the growth rate of 6.5% last year. On Wednesday, the Asia-Pacific stock markets fell collectively, taking over the overnight decline in U.S. stocks. The Japanese and South Korean stock markets both closed down more than 1%, and the Vietnam VN30 index fell more than 2% during the session. The Nikkei 225 fell 1.17% to close at 26,386.63. Securities, transportation equipment, banking, steel, and textile stocks were among the top losers, while shipping stocks rose sharply. South Korea's KOSPI fell 1.10% to end at 2,639.06.
In terms of Southeast Asian and South Asian markets, as of the time of writing, Singapore's Straits Times Index fell 0.14%; Vietnam's VN30 Index fell 1.54%; Indonesia's Jakarta Composite Index fell 0.68%; Thailand's SET Index fell 0.43%; Philippine Composite Index fell 2.00%; India Mumbai 30 fell 0.88%; Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur Composite Index fell 0.48%.
(The above analysis only represents the analyst's point of view, the forex market is risky, and investment should be cautious)
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